This paper attempts to explore the impacts of villagers living in the vicinity of the forest
area on forests and forest resources. For this, a survey was conducted on 171 households of eight
locations. The households were grouped into three farm categories upper, middle and lower.
From PRA exercise it was found that there was an overall shortage of fuel wood and other low
cost house-building materials. The villagers were partially dependent on the forest resources. The
lower farm category had the lowest number of bamboo than those of the upper and middle farm
categories. In upper, middle and lower farm categories, the forest and non-forest tree ratios were
found to be 67:33, 41:59 and 72:28 respectively and for all it was 60:40. The average tree income
ratios of homestead and forest were 57:43, 38:62 and 29:71 for the upper, middle and lower farm
categories respectively and for all it was 41:59. The average incomes from the business were 63%
for upper and 73% for middle and lower farm categories. The major shares of income (70%) came
from the business. Highest (25%) depletion of forest resources were in Bagerhat and the lowest
(4%) in Noagaon. It was elicited that the forest was depleted by about 12.5% annually.